News April 2012

At the beginning of February, Nigeria’s Minister of National Planning, Shamsuddeen Usman, revealed that the Abuja authorities had requested the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance a feasibility study for the Calabar-Kano gas pipeline which is the domestic segment of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP). This 4,128 km pipeline would transport 30 billion cubic…

The country we now know as Libya has never known territorial unity until 1934; and that was during the Italian occupation. Before the Italians, the area had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire, and before that by a series of colonizers. In short, Libyans have a long history of struggle but no experience of…

This is a long story that started back in 1994 when the Italian navy, following a tip off from the British, seized an arsenal of weapons off the Italian coast. 400 missiles, 30,000 AK47’s, 5,000 Katuscha rockets, 11,000 anti-tank rockets and 32million rounds were part of the catch on freighter Jadran Express. The government…

Senegal has seen its share of political ups and down. Yet, under founding father Léopold Sédar Senghor and his successor Abdou Diouf, the country moved forward and it was spared major social upheaval, unlike some of its bordering nations. The soft conflict in the southern region of Casamance has been the real sore spot…

The Afrikaner and the European far right are mobilizing international attention around the victims of the farm attacks, which they claim is the beginning of a “Boer genocide”. In March, 48 members of the European Parliament from 19 countries have condemned the murders of white farmers in South Africa in a statement of protest…